Immunoregulatory abnormalities have been shown to exist in a wide variety of "autoimmune" and chronic inflammatory diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosis, chronic rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes mellitus, inflammatory bowel disease, biliary cirrhosis, uveitis, multiple sclerosis and pemphigoid, sarcoidosis, psoriasis, ichthyosis, and other disorders such as Chrons disease, ulcerativ colitis, bullous Graves ophthalomopathy. Although the underlying pathogenesis of each of these conditions may be quite different, they have in common the appearance of a variety of autoantibodies and self-reactive lymphocytes. Such self-reactivity may be due, in part, to a loss of the homeostatic controls under which the normal immune system operates.
Similarly, following a bone-marrow or an organ transplantation, the host lymphocytes recognize the foreign tissue antigens and begin to produce antibodies which lead to graft rejection.
One end result of an autoimmune or a rejection process is tissue destruction caused by inflammatory cells and the mediators they release. Antiflammatory agents such as NSAID's and corticosteroids act principally by blocking the effect or secretion of these mediators but do nothing to modify the immunologic basis of the disease. On the other hand, cytotoxic agents such as cyclophosphamide, act in such a nonspecific fashion that both the normal and autoimmune responses are shut off. Indeed, patients treated with such nonspecific immunosuppressive agents are as likely to succumb from infection as they are from their autoimmune disease.
Cyclosporin A which was licensed by the U.S. FDA in 1983 is currently the leading drug used to prevent rejection of transplanted organs. The drug acts by inhibiting the body's immune system from mobilizing its vast arsenal of natural protecting agents to reject the transplant's foreign protein. Though cyclosporin A is effective in fighting transplant rejection, it is nephrotoxic and is known to cause several undesirable side effects including kidney failure, abnormal liver function and gastrointestinal discomfort.
Newer, safer drugs exhibiting less side effects are constantly being searched for in the field.
The 23-membered tricyclo-macrolide immunosuppressant, FR-900506, ##STR3## and related compound which were isolated and characterized by Tanaka, Kuroda, and co-workers at Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Co. in Japan, see J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1987, 109, 5031, and EPO Pub. No. 0,184,162, have been shown to possess exceptional immunosuppressive activity. The compound FR-900506 has been reported to be 100 times more effective than cyclosporin in the suppression of in vitro immune systems (J. Antibiotics 1987, 40, 1256). In addition, these compounds are reputed to possess topical activity in the treatment of inflammatory and hyperproliferative skin diseases and cutaneous manifestations of immunologically-mediated illnessess (EPO Pub. No. 0,315,978).
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide new analogs of these tricyclomacrolides which will (1) restore the balance of the help-and-suppression mechanism of the immune system by acting at an earlier point than the anti inflammatory agents and (2) induce specific long-term transplantation tolerance through a suppressor cell circuit without increasing the body's susceptibility to infection.
An additional object of the present invention is to provide analogs of these tricyclo-macrolides which possess topical activity in the treatment of inflammatory and hyperproliferative skin diseases and cutaneous manifestations of immunologically-mediated illnesses
Another object of the present invention is to provide pharmaceutical compositions for administering to a patient in need of the treatment one or more of the active immunosuppressive agents of the present invention.
Still a further object of this invention is to provide a method of controlling graft rejection, autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases by administering a sufficient amount of one or more of the novel immunosuppressive agents in a mammalian species in need of such treatment.
Finally, it is the object of this invention to provide processes for the preparation of the active compounds of the present invention.